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ffiak^ Engltsli Qllaastrs 

General Editor 

LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A.B. 

Professor of English in Brown University 



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SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

CHICAGO: 623 S.Wabash Ave. NEW YORK: 8 East 34th Street 



^Dtc %akt Cngltsif) Clasisiits; 



REVISED EDITION WITH HELPS TO STUDY 

THE RIME 
OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

AND 

THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 

BY 

WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 

SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, THE TXIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 






COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1919, BY 
SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 



ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY 

EDITION BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
CHiCAGO. U.S.A. 



APR 16 1919 
©CI.A5250S4 



^5- 

A CONTENTS 

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 

Introduction Pagi- 

Life of Coleridge 5 

Critical Comment 19 

Text 27 

Notes 61 

Appendix 

Helps to Study 104 

Chronological Table 109 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Introduction 67 

Text 83 

Notes 99 

Appendix 

Helps to Study 107 

Chronological Table 109 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 



INTRODUCTION 

LIFE OF COLERIDGE 
1 

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, a remark- 
able change began to take place in English poetry. For 
more than a century, first under the leadership of Dry- 
den, and then under that of Pope, poets had striven 
to give their verse formal correctness and elegance at 
the expense of naturabess and spontaneity. They 
had given up the free forms of verse used by the Eliza- 
bethan poets, and confined themselves almost entirely 
to a single form, the rhymed couplet. Subjects of 
romance and passion, such as the EUzabethans had 
loved, were discarded for more mundane themes, which 
could be handled with wit and precision, or with stately 
dignity of manner. But in the verse of Collins, Gray, 
Crabbe, and Burns, there appeared a strong protest 
against all this. Poets began to reassert their right 



6 INTRODUCTION 

to represent the world of nature and men as they saw 
them, full of color, mystery, and emotion. 

This literary revolution, which marks the transition 
from the eighteenth to the ninete^ith centuries, we 
call — not very exactly — the Romantic movement; and 
of this movement Samuel Taylor Coleridge is one of 
the most interesting figures. His significance is of 
two sorts, as philosopher and as poet. As philosopher, 
he brought into England the new system of thought 
developed in Germany by Kant and his followers, — 
a life-long work, which took his best in energy and in 
time. As poet, his work is small in bulk, and was ac- 
complished almost entirely in a single wonderful year. 
But, small as it is in bulk, it occupies a place of the 
first importance in the history of English literature, 
and, what is more to our purpose, has at its best a peculiar 
enthralling beauty which we shall look in vain to find 
elsewhere c 



II 

Coleridge was bom October 21, 1772, at the vicarage 
of Gttery St^ Mary, in the county of Devonshire, Eng- 
land. His father was as eccentric and unworldly as 
a country parson and the father of Coleridge should 
have been. Of Coleridge's early life we get vivid glimpses 



LIFE OF COLERIDGE 7 

from his later letters; or.c; remembers especially his slash- 
ing with a stick at rows of nettles representing the 
Seven Champions of Christendom. Such games were 
apt to be solitary, for, as he says himself, he ''never 
thought or spoke as a child," and his precocity had 
the inevitable effect of isolating him from his boisterous 
brothers. 

When nine years old, he was sent to Christ's Hos- 
pital, an ancient charity school in the heart of London. 
Here he met Charles Lamb, to whose essays the stu- 
dent should, turn for a picture of the school as it ap- 
peared then to boyish eyes. The orphan from the 
country, lonesome and friendless, who figures in the 
essay, Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago, 
is Coleridge, a little manipulated for pathos perhaps. 

A pleasant anecdote of this school period narrates 
that one day Coleridge was walking in the streets of 
London and moving his arms about in a strange man- 
ner, when he accidently touched the pocket of an old 
gentleman passing. The irate citizen was about to 
hand him over to the police as a pickpocket. "I am 
not a pickpocket, sir," the boy protested, ''I only thought 
I was Leander swimming the Hellespont!" The old 
gentleman forthwith subscribed to a circulating library 
in order to give Leander his fill of books. The story 
continues that he read the whole list through without 
skipping a volume. 



8 INTRODUCTION 

Whether this last assertion is true or not, Coleridge 
achieved, while at school, a great reputation for learn- 
ing. Lamb speaks of the "deep, sweet intonations** 
with which his friend used to recite Greek .hexameters 
and expound the mysteries of abstruse philosophers 
like JambUchus and Plotinus to casual passers in the 
halls of Christ's Hospital, while they stood astounded 
before him, as before a "young Mirandola,"* and "the 
walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed the accents of 
the inspired charity boy." It was here, too, that Cole- 
ridge underwent the first profound poetic influence 
of his life. This he found in the sonnets of Bowles, 
a poet now entirely forgotten. The influence was for 
good, since Bowles, though not a strong writer, was 
a natural one, from whose verse Coleridge could learn, 
in a mild form, the new ideals of poetry which he him- 
self was to embody in more vivid work. 

At nineteen, Coleridge entered Jesus College, Cam- 
bridge. Here he met Southey, and plimged with him 
at once into the enthusiasm for social progress and 
political regeneration which the French revolution 
had aroused in all ardent young breasts. His ardor 
was temporarily dampened by anxiety over some col- 
lege debts which drove him to London and landed him 
at last in the recruiting office of the 15th Light Dra- 

*Pico della Mirandola, an Italian scholar of the early Renais- 
sance, famous for his precocious learning. 



LIFE OF COLERIDGE 9 

goons. He passed two wretched months of service. 
Fortunately, he was a favorite with his messmates, and 
spent his time writing their letters home to mothers 
and sweethearts, while they groomed and saddled his 
horse. A Latin lament which he scribbled on the wall 
under his saddle-peg, caught the attention of a lettered 
captain, and "Private Cumberback," as he had signed 
himself in humorous allusion to his lack of horseman- 
ship, was sent back to Cambridge to finish his studies. 
The incident illustrates his impulsiveness and human 
charm, as well as the vacillation of will which was to 
prove so fatal to him. 



Ill 



After leaving college, Coleridge went with Southey. 
to Bristol, Southey's home. Here the two friends 
evolved a radiant scheme for the future. They de- 
termined to make actual some of the Utopian theories 
in the air at the time, by establishing an ideal com- 
munity across the ocean, on the banks of the Susque- 
hanna. The site was chosen chiefly, one iliust imagine, 
because of the musical name. _^ In this virgin Paradise, 



10 INTRODUCTION 

they and their . fellow-colonists, with their wives, were 
to share in common the two hours a day of toil neces- 
sary to make the wilderness bloom as a rose, and to 
devote the remainder of their time to elevating pur- 
suits. Southey's more practical nature made him 
abandon this grand scheme of Pantisocracy, as it was 
called, long before Coleridge lost faith in it; and his 
desertion led to a rupture between the friends which 
was not healed for a long time. A part of their pro- 
gram, however, they proceeded to carry out: Coleridge 
married, in October, 1795, Miss Sarah Fricker, of Bristol; 
and six weeks later Southey married her sister Edith. 

The only assurance of income which Coleridge had 
to marry upon was an order from a Bristol publisher, 
Cottle, for a volume of poems. This volume, entitled 
Juvenile Poems , was soon forthcoming. In comparison 
with his later work, it contains nothing of note. The 
thirty guineas which it brought in, he attempted to 
eke out by preaching, lecturing, and publishing. To 
get subscribers for a projected periodical called The 
Watchfnan, Coleridge made a memorable tour of the 
midland counties, preaching on Sundays "as a tireless 
volunteer in a blue coat and white waistcoat," and 
charming everybody by his eloquence and earnestness. 

Of Coleridge as a preacher, we get from young Hazlitt, 
who had on this occasion walked ten miles through the 
mad to hear him, a vivid account. He says: 



LIFE OF COLERIDGE 11 

Mr. Coleridge arose, and gave out his text, 'He departed 
again into a mountain, himself, alone.' As he gave out tliis text, 
'lis voice rose like a steam of distilled perfumes; and when he 
came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, 
and distinct, it seemed to me . . .as if the sound . 
might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The 
preacher then launched into his subject, like an eagle dallying 
with the wind. 

And, again, speaking of Coleridge's talk at this 
time: 

His genius had angelic wings, and fed on manna. He talked 
on forever, and you wished him to talk on forever. His thoughts 
did not seem to come with labor and effort, but as if the wings 
of imagination lifted him off his feet. His voice rolled on the 
ear like a pealing organ, and its sound alone was the music of 
thought. 

In spite of poverty and domestic cares, this Bristol 
period was a happy one for Coleridge, especially the 
time which he spent in the neighboring village of Cleve- 
don, in a little rose-covered cottage, close by the sea. 
It is sad to read, however, in one of his letters of this 
period, a sentence or two which prophesy the abyss 
of wretchedness ahead. He complains of violent neu- 
ralgia of the face, and says that he has ''sopped the 
Cerberus" with a heavy dose of laudanum. 



12 , J.NTR0DUC1I0JN 



IV 



Early in 1797, Coleridge removed, with his wife 
and young baby, to a tiny cottage in the village of 
Nether Stowey, in the green Quantock hills, and a 
month later they were joined by Wordsworth and h^s 
sister Dorothy, who took the neighboring mansion 
of Alfoxden. Coleridge was then twenty-five, and 
his brother poet only a little older. They had knowm 
each other but a few months when a mutual attraction 
brought them thus closely together. For Wordsworth, 
their companionship w^as to mean much; for Coleridge, 
it was to mean everything. Under the bracing influence 
of Wordsworth's large, original mind, supplemented 
by the quick sympathy and suggestiveness of Dorothy, 
and the quiet beauty of the Quantocks, Coleridge shot 
up suddenly into full poetic stature. In little more 
than a year, he wrote all the poems which place him 
among the immortals. This was the year of Genevieve^ 
The Dark Ladie, Kuhla Khan, The Ancient Mariner j 
and the first part of Christahel, — truly, as it has been 
called, an annus mirahilis, a year of wonders. Of these 
The Ancient Mariner stands first as the one work of 
his life which he really completed; Kuhla Khan has 
a more spacious music; Christahel has a more elusive 
and eerie mystery; but both of these are fragments. 



Lli^E OJ^ COLKKlDGi^J 13 

The Ancient Mariner is as rounded as a gem, and the 
light that plays through it is unstained by a single flaw. 
The Ancient Mariner was undertaken, singular to 
say, as a mere "pot-boiler/' Coleridge and the Words- 
worths had in mind a little autumn walking tour from 
Alfoxden over the Quantock hills to Watchet. To 
defray the expenses of the trip, some five pounds, they 
determined to compose together a poem to be sent to 
the New Monthly Magazine. Coleridge suggested, as 
a starting point, a dream which had been related to 
him by his friend Mr. Cruikshank, a dream '* of a skeleton 
ship, with figures in it." To this Wordsw^orth added 
something he had just read in Shelvocke's Voyages, 
an accoimt of the great albatrosses, with wings stretch- 
ing twelve or thirteen feet from tip to tip, which Shel- 
vocke had seen while doubling Cape Horn. Taking 
a hint from the same account, he suggested that a sailor 
should kill one of these birds, and that the tutelary 
spirits of the region should take vengeance on the mur- 
derer. Wordsworth also suggested the navigation of 
the ship by the dead men. Coleridge's imagination 
seized eagerly upon all these hints, and began to weave 
them into unity. The composition of the poem began 
at once, the two poets co-operating line by line. A 
few lines which stand in the completed poem were fur- 
nished by Wordsworth, especially the characteristic 
ones, 



S4 IMTRODUCTION 

And listens like a three years' chUd, 
The mariner hath his wiU, 

But they had not progressed far before their styles 
and manners of thought were seen to be so divergent 
that the idea of joint composition had to be abandoned. 
The task then naturally fell to Coleridge, because of 
the congeniality of the subject to his peculiar imagina- 
tion. As The Ancient Mariner bade fair to take on 
dimension too large to allow it to be put to the modest 
use originally intended, it was proposed to make a little 
volume by adding to it other poems which the friends 
had in manuscript, or were contemplating. In thr 
course of the following year, the volume appeared, under 
the title Lyrical Ballads. It is the most famous land- 
mark iij the history of the Romantic movement; in it 
the poetic ideals which had inspired the work of Cowper 
and Blake received for the first time full and clear ex- 
pression. 

What these ideals were may be summed up in the 
phrase "a return to nature. Fidelity to nature, and 
the use of the least artificial means possible in repro- 
ducing nature, constituted the most sincere among 
the many half-formed literary creeds of the day. But 
nature, rightly conceived, is two-sided. There is first 
the world of external fact, the visible world of men and 
things: and there is further the inner world of thought 
and imagination. It was a part of the philosophy 



LIFE OF COLERIDGE 15 

which lay back of the Romantic movement, that this 
inner world was just as ''real/' just as truly existent, 
and therefore just as worthy of being talked about, as 
the outer one, — perhaps more so. This double aspect 
of the Romantic school is illustrated by the contents of 
the Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth writes in simple 
language of simple incidents and simple people, though 
he does not fail to find a suggestion of strangeness and 
mystery in them as they are seen by the spiritual eye 
of the poet; in other words, he makes the usual appear 
strange simply by fastening our gaze intently upon it. 
Coleridge writes of fantastic, supernatural things, but 
also so simply, with so many concrete and exact details, 
that the world of imagination into which he leads us 
seems for the time the only real one. The Lyrical Bal- 
lads contained four poems by Coleridge, only a small 
portion of the whole; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner j 
however, has the place of honor at the beginning. 

For one happy year, the poets were free to roam 
over the Quantock downs. We are told that Cole- 
ridge loved to compose while walking over uneven 
ground, or ''breaking through straggling branches 
of copsewood," but that Wordsworth preferred a "straight 
gravel walk" for the purpose. Before we follow Cole- 
ridge hastily through the gloomy years ahead, let us 
see him as he appeared to his friends in his prime. Dor- 
othy Wordsworth says in her journal: 



16 INTRODL'(JiiOi\ 

At first, I thought him very plain, that is for about three 
minutes. He is pale, has a wide mouth, thick lips, and not very 
good teeth; longish, loose-growing, half-curling, rough black hair. 
But if you hear liim speak for five minutes, you think no more 
of these. 

And Hazlitt writes: 

His forehead is broad and high, light, as if built of ivory, 
with large, projecting eyebrows; and his eyes rolled beneath them 
like a sea with darkened lustre. 

In the same year in which the Lyrical Ballads ap- 
peared, Coleridge received the gift of a small permanent 
annuity, and was enabled to carry out a cherished plan 
for visiting Germany. Here he plunged at once into 
the transcendental philosoph}^ of Kant and Schelling; 
and the rest of his life, so far as it had a unified purpose, 
was one long effort to interpret this philosoph}^ to Eng- 
land. On his return, however, his first labor was a 
literary one, a translation of Schiller's drama, Wallen- 
stein. He soon settled in the Lake country, where he 
shared a house w^th his brother-in-law, Southey. The 
dampness of the lake climate brought on his old neu- 
ralgic troubles, and as an escape from the intolerable 
pain, he resorted to opium. The history of the next 
ten 3^ears, when his marvelous powders should have been 
putting forth their finest product, is a heart-breaking 
succession of half-attempts and whole-failures, in newfj- 



LIFE OF COLEKlDGi^ IV 

paper work, magazine editing, and lecturing; the fatal 
habit fastened itself more and more tightly upon him, 
sapping his will and manhood. At last, in 1814, he 
voluntarily put himself under the surveillance of a 
London physician. Dr. Gillman. He lived in the doc- 
tor's house from this time forth, and gradually struggled 
free from his bondage to the drug. 

From the beginning of his residence with Dr. Gillman 
until his death, in 1834, Coleridge stood as a kind of 
prophet and seer to young men eager to penetrate into 
the arcana of transcendental philosophy. One more 
picture of him, as he -appeared in old age to young Thomas 
Carlyle, will do to bear away: 

Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in those years 
looking down on London and its smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped 
from the inanity of life's battles; attracting toward him the thoughts 
of innumerable brave souls still engaged there. . . . He 
was thought to hold, he alone in England, the key of German 
and other transcendentalisms; knew the sublime secret of believ- 
ing by the 'reason' what the 'understanding' had been obliged 
to fling out as incredible. ... A sublime man; who, alone 
in those dark days, had saved his crown of spiritual manhood; 
escaping from the black materialisms, and revolutionary deluges, 
with 'God, Freedom, Immortality' still his; a king of men. The 
practical intellects of the world did not much heed him, or care- 
lessly reckoned him a metaphysical dreamer. But to the rising 
spirits of the young generation, he had this dusky, sublime char- 
acter; and sat there as a kind of Magus, girt in mysteiy and enigma. 



18 INTRODUCTION 

We may do well to bear in mind, in reading The 
Ancient Mariner, that it was from a brain of this order 
that the poem came. Though its beauty is sufficient 
for us, though as poetry, and poetry only, it must be 
taken, yet no harm can come from remembering that 
the man who has made us feel the wildness and the 
wonder of this dream-sea, was a metaphysician, at home 
«>mong the immensities of abstract thought. 



CRITICAL COMMENT 

I 

The "moral meaning" of The Ancient Mariner 
is plain, — too plain, perhaps, as Coleridge is himself 
reported to have said. The lesson it teaches is the 
duty« of human kindness to "man and bird and beast." 
The mariner's wanton cruelty in shooting the albatross 
draws down upon him and his companions the wrath 
of the polar spirit. Those who have merely selfishly 
acquiesced in the crime, from a belief that the bird 
was of evil omen, are punished with death, but the 
Ancienf Mariner, as the prime offender, is reserved for 
a more dreadful punishment His setting apart for 
particular vengeance is typified by the dice-throwing 
on the deck of the skeleton ship, by which Life-in-Death 
wins him away from Death, and Death wins the rest 
of the crew. Thus far he has suffered only physical 
torture, but now spiritual torture succeeds. He can- 
not pray, for always a "wicked whisper" comes to 

19 



20 INTRODUCTION 

make his heart as dry as dust. Why? Because his 
heart is still full of hate. His shipmates, whom he after- 
wards speaks of lovingly as "the many men so beautiful,'* 
are now for him only rotting corpses on the rotting deck, 
with eyes that curse even in death. Suddenly, how- 
ever, his soul is mystically touched. He sees the moon 
going softly up the sky, with a star or two in company, 
not spectral, or strange, but as if "the blue sky belonged 
to them" and there was a "silent joy at their arrival." 
With eyes thus opened by sympathy, he looks upon the 
water-snakes, which before have seemed to him slimy 
and loathsome, but which now as they play are clothed 
in beautiful light, as befits "God's creatures of the 
great calm." A spring of love gushes from his heart, 
and he blesses them for their beauty and their happiness. 
Instantly the horrid spell is broken, and to his soul 
comes the relief of prayer, to his body sleep and the 
gift of rain. Angelic spirits, sent into the bodies of 
the dead crew, take back the ship, with songs, to the 
fatherland, where the Mariner may expiate his sin in 
prayer and ever-repeated confession. 

Such is the spiritual meaning of the poem. It exists 
as a kind of undertone, giving to the poetry a certain 
religious depth and solemnity which it would not other- 
wise possess. It is not, however, to be made too much 
of. The delicate dream-world in which the poem moves, 
with its great pictures of night and morning, of arctic 



CRITICAL COMMENT 21 

and tropic seas; with its melodies of whispering keel, 
of sere sails rustling leafily, of dead throats singing 
spectral carols, — all this should not be passed by through 
zeal to get at the "meaning." The beauty is meaning 
enough. First of all, a reader must abandon himself 
to the illusion, put himself into the story, and try to 
realize its movement, to see its sights, to hear its sounds. 
He must give to it at least what Coleridge calls "that 
wifling suspension of disbelief which constitutes poetic 
faith." 

Having read the poem in this way, not once but 
many times, the student can begin to examine it more 
closely. Here, the notes, and the gloss* printed in smal' 
type at the side of the verse, will be of aid. Until 
he has read and "felt" the poem for himself he 
should not pay any attention to them; afterward he 
should study them carefully in connection with the^ 
text. The notes are to be taken not as an exhaustive 
comment, but only as hints in an independent search 
for whatever of beauty or interest the poem can yield. 
The student will do well to jot down in the margin obser- 
vations of his own to supplement them. Then, after 
a little interval, he should read the poem again, as a 
whole, and try to see it once more in its entirety, but 
with the added understanding which study has brought. 

*This gloss, imitated from old writers, did not originally ac- 
company the poem; it was added in a later edition. 



22 INTRODUCTION 



XI 



The simple ballad measure in which The Ancient 
Mariner is written presents no difficulties in reading. 
Attention to some of the metrical effects, however, 
and the means by which they are produced, will ma- 
terially increase one's pleasure in the verse. 

The following line may be taken as the normal one, 
from which all other types are variations: 

The ship ] was cheered | the har- \ bor cleared. 

There is here a regular succession of unstressed and 
stressed syllables, each pair constituting a foot. This 
foot, in which the stress falls on the second syllable, 
is called iambic. Most of the feet which occur in the 
poem are of this sort. In some cases, however, the 
stress, instead of falling on the second syllable of the 
foot, is shifted to the first syllable, as in the first foot 
of each of the following lines: 

We were | the first ] that ev- \ er burst 
In-to 1 that si- [ lent sea. 

The introduction of this foot, called trochaic, gives a 
distinctly different movement to the line; the music. 



CRITICAL COMMENT 23 

as well as the sense, would be destroyed by emphasizing 
the second syllable. 

Again, the number of syllables in a given foot is 
sometimes not two, but three, as in the first foot of 
the line, 

And the good 1 south wind ] still blew | be-hind. 

This foot, of two unstressed syllables, followed by one 
stressed syllable, is called anapestic„ An anapest oc- 
cupies no more time in reading than an iamb, for the 
weak syllables are pronounced very lightly. Hence, 
the movement of a line in which anapests occur is rapid. 
Sometimes all three varieties of feet described above 
occur in a single line; as. 

To and | fro we | were hur- | ried a-boiit. 

which is made up of two trochees, one iamb, and one 
anapest. The disturbed movement of the line cor- 
responds with the idea which it expresses. 

Variations also occur in the stanza form. The 
normal ballad stanza is of four lines, the first and third 
of four feet, unrh3^med, the second and fourth of three 
feet, rhymed. In one or two cases, an extra syllable 
is added to the three-foot line; as, 



With a short ( un-eas- [ y mo- | tion. 



24 liNTRODUCnON 

Medial rhymes sometimes occur in the four-foot 

lines; as, 

''The game is done! I've won! I've wo7if 

Coleridge varies this stanza form to include five, six, 
and, in one case, nine lines, variously rhymed. In 
some cases, the variation is merely for variety; in others, 
it is intended to re-inforce the thought. Stanza 48, for 
example, strengthens the impression of suspense; stanza 
12, the impression of hurry. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 



PART THE FIRST 



It is an ancient Mariner, 

And he stoppeth one of three. 

By thy long gray beard and gUttering eye, 
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? 

• 

II 
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 

And I am next of kin; 
The guests are met, the feast is set: 
May'st hear the merry din." 

Ill 

He holds him with his skinny hand, 
"There was a ship/' quoth he 
Hold off! unhand me, gray-beard loon!" 
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 



An ancient 
Mariner 
meeteth 
tiiree Gal- 
lants bid- 
den to a 
wedding- 
feast, and 
detaineth 
one. 



IV 

He holds him with his glittering eye- 
The Wedding-Guest stood still, 

And listens hke a three years' child: 
The Mariner hath his will. 

27 



The Wed- 
ding-Guest 
is spell- 
bound by 
the eye of 
the old sea- 
faring man, 
and con- 
strained to 
hear his 
tale. 



28 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone; 

He cannot choose but hear; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 

The bright-eyed Mariner. 



VI 
"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared 
Merrily did we drop 
Below the kirk, below the hill, 
Below the lighthouse top. 



The Mar- 
iner telis 
how the 
ship sailed 
southward 
with a good 
wind and 
fair weather 
till it 

reached the 
Line. 



VII 

The sun came up upon the left, 

Out of the sea came he! 
And he shone bright, and on the right 

Went down into the sea. 



VIII 

Higher and higher every day, 
Till over the mast at noon — " 

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, 
For he heard the loud bassoon. 



The Wed- 
ding-Guest 
heareth tho 
bridal 
music; but 
the Mariner 
continueth 
his tale. 



IX 

The bride hath paced into the hall, 

Red as a rose is she; 
Nodding their heads before her goes 

The merry minstrelsy. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



29 



X 

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, 
Yet he cannot choose but hear; 

And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed Mariner. 



XI 

"And now the Storm-Blast came, and he 
Was tyrannous and strong: 
He struck with his o'ertaking wings, 
And chased us south along. 



The ship 
drawn by 
storm to- 
ward the 
south pole. 



XII 

With sloping masts and dipping prow, 
As who pursued with yell and blow 

Still treads the shadow of his foe, 
And forward bends his head, 

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, 
And southward aye we fled. 

XIII 
And now there came both mist and snow. 

And it grew wondrous cold: 
And ice, mast-high, came floating by 

As green as emerald. 



XIV 

And through the drifts the snowy clifts 

Did send a dismal sheen: 
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken — 

The ice was all between. 



The land ot 
ice, and of 
fearful 
sounds, 
where no 
living thing 
was to be 
seen. 



30 



THE ANCIENT MARINEK 



XV 

The ice was here, the ice was there, 

The ice was all around: 
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 

Like noises in a swound! 



Till a great 
sea-bird, 
called the 
Albatross, 
came 

through the 
snow-fog, 
and was re- 
ceived with 
great joy 
and hospi- 
tality. 



XVI 

At length did cross an Albatross: 
Thorough the fog it came; 

As if it had been a Christian soul, 
We hailed it in God's name. 

XVII 

It ate the food it ne'er had eat, 
And round and round it fiew. 

The ice did split with a thunder-fit; 
The helmsman steered us through! 



And lo! the 
Albatross 

Eroveth a 
ird of good 
omen, and 
followeth 
the ship as 
it returned 
northward, 
through fog 
ind floating 
V;e. 



XVIII 

And a good south wind sprung up behind; 

The Albatross did follow. 
And every day, for food or play, 

Came to the mariners' hollo! 



XIX 

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 

It perched for vespers nine; 
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white. 

Glimmered the white moon-shine.'^ 



THE ANCIENT ^L4R1NER v5l 

XX 

"God save thee, ancient Manner! The anciem 

From the fiends, that plague thee thus! — inhospita- 
Why look'st thou so?" — ''With my cross-bow the pious 
1 shot the Albatross. omen. 



PART THE SECOND 

XXI 

The Sun now rose upon the right r 

Out of the sea came he, 
Still hid in mist, and on the left 

Went down into the sea. 

XXII 

And the good south wind still blew behind, 

But no sweet bird did follow, 
Nor any day, for food or play, 

Came to the mariners' hollo! 



His ship- 
mates cry 
out against 
the ancient 
Mariner, 
for killing 
the bird of 
good luck. 



XXIII 

And I had done a hellish thing. 
And it would work 'em woe: 

For all averred, I had killed the bird 

That made the breeze to blow. 
*Ah, wretch!' said they, 'the bird to slay,, 
That made the breeze to blow!' 



But when 
the fog 
cleared off, 
they justify 
the same, 
and thus 
make them- 
selves ac- 
complices 
in the crime. 



XXIV 

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, 

The glorious Sun uprist: 
Then all averred, I had killed the bird 

That brought the fog and mist. 
'Twas right,' said they, 'such birds to slay, 

That bring the fog and mist.' 

32 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 33 

XXV 

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, brlei?^con- 

The furrow followed free; sSplAterl 

We were the first that ever burst oSfn and 

Into that silent sea. ward^even 

till it* 

reaches the 
Line. 

XXVI 
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, Jath^be^n 

Twas sad as sad could be; beSiS. 

And we did speak only to break 

The silence of the sea! 



XXVII 

All in a hot and copper sky, 

The bloody Sun, at noon. 
Right up above the mast did stand, 

No bigger than the Moon. 

XXVIII 

Day after day, day after day. 

We stuck, nor breath nor motion; 
As idle as a painted ship 

Upon a painted ocean. 

XXIX 

Water, water, everywhere, - Aibatnfss 

And all the boards did shrink; a^fn^'ged" ^^ 

Water, water, everywhere. 
Nor anv drop to d?^ink. 



34 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



XXX 

The very deep did rot: O Christ! 
> That ever this should be! 
Yea, shmy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy sea 

XXXI 

About, about, m reel and rout 
The death-fires danced at^ night; 

The water, like a witch's oils, 

Burnt green, and blue, and white. 



XXXII 

A spirit had And some in dreams assured were 
them^;^one Of the Spirit that plagued us so: 

visible in- Nine fathom deep he had followed us 

habitants of f^ j.i i i r • j. i 

tiiis planet, From the land of mist and snow. 

neither de- 
parted souls nor angels; concerning \\'hom the learned Jew Josephus, and the 
Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are 
very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more. 



The ship- 
mates in 
their sore 
distress 
would fain 
throw the 
whole guilt 
on the an- 
dent Mar- 
iner; in sign 
whereof 
they hang 
the dead 
sea-bird 
round his 
fleck. 



XXXIII 

And every tongue, through utter drought, 

Was withered at the root; 
We oould not speak, no more than if 

We had been choked with soot- 

XXXIY 

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks 

Had I from old and young! 
Instead of the cross, the Albatross 

About my neck w^as hung. 



PART THE THIRD 

XXXV 

There passed a weary time. Each throat 
Was parched, and glazed each eye. 

A weary time! a weary time! 
How glazed each weary eye! 

When looking westward, I beheld 
A something in the sky. 

XXXVI 

At first it seemed a little speck, 

And then it seemed a mist: 
It moved, and moved, and took at last 

A certain shape, I wist. 

XXXVII 

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! 

And still it neared and neared: 
As if it dodged a water-sprite, 

It plunged and tacked and veered. 



The ancient 
Mariner be- 
hold eth a 
sign in the 
element 
afar off. 



XXXVIII 



At its 
nearer ap- 
proach, it 
seemeth 



With, throats unslaked, with black lips baked, mm to be 

We could nor laugh nor wail; 
Through utter drought all dumb we stood! 
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, 

And cried, A sail! a sail! 

35 



ship; and 
at a dear 
ransom 
he freeth 
his speech 
from the 
bonds of 
thirst- 



36 



THE ANCIENT AL4RINER 



A flash of 
joy; 



XXXIX 

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked. 

Agape they heard rne call: 
Gramercy! they for joy did grin, 
And all at once their breath drew in, 

As they were drinking all. 



And horror 
follows. For 
can it be a 
ship that 
comes on- 
ward with- 
out wind or 
:ide? 



XL 

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no morel 

Hither to work us weal; 
Without a breeze, without a tide, 

She steadies with upright keel! 



XLI 

The western wave was all a-flame, 
The day was well-nigh done! 

Almost upon the western wave 
Rested the broad bright Sun; 

When that strange shape drove suddenly 
Betwixt us and the Sun. 



It seemeth 
him but the 
skeleton of 
a ship. 



XLII 
And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, 

(Heaven's Mother send us grace!) 
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered, 

With broad and burning face. 

XLIII 
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) 

How fast she nears and nears! 
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, 

l^ike restless 2;ossameres? 



iHE AiNClENT MARINER 

XLIV 

Are those her ribs through which the Sun 
Did peer, as through a grate? 

And is that Woman all her crew? 

Is that a Death? and are there two? 
Is Death that Woman's mate? 



XLV 

Her lips were red, her looks were free, 

Her locks were yellow as gold: 
Her skin was as w^hite as leprosy, 
The Night-mare Life-in-Death w^as she, 
Who thicks man's blood with cold. 



37 



And its ribs 
are seen as 
bars on the 
face of the 
setting Sun. 
The Spec- 
tre-Woman 
and her 
Death- 
mate, and 
no other on 
board the 
skeleton- 
ship. 



Like vessel, 
like crew: 



XLVI 

The naked hulk alongside came, 
And the twain were casting dice; 

The game is done! I've won! IVe won!' 
Quoth she, and whistles thrice. 



Death and 
Life-in- 
Death have 
diced for 
the ship's 
crew, and 
she (the 
latter) win- 
neth the 
ancient 
Mariner. 



XLVII 

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; 

At .one stride comes the dark; 
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, 

Off shot the spectre-bark. 



No twilight 
within the 
courts of 
the Sun. 



38 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



At the rising 
of the Moon, 



XLVIII 

We listened and looked sideways upf 
Fear at my heart, as at a cup, 

My life-blood seemed to sip! 
The stars were dim, and thick the night, 
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed 
white; 

From the sails the dew did drip — 
Till clomb above the eastern bar 
The horned Moon, with one bright star 

Within the nether tip. 



One after 
another 



XLIX 
One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, 

Too quick for groan or sigh. 
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, 

And cursed me with his eye. 



His ship- 
mates arop 
down dead, 



L 

Four times fifty living men, 

(And I heard nor sigh nor groan) 

With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, 
They dropped down one by one. 



But Life- 
in-Death 
begins her 
work on the 
ancient 
Mariner. 



LI 

The souls did from their bodies fly— 
They fled to bliss or woe! 

And every soul, it passed me by, 
Like the whizz of mv cross-bowl" 



PART THE FOURTH 

LII 

"I fear thee ancient Mariner! 
I fear thy skinny hand! 
And thou art long, and lank, and brown, 
As is the ribbed sea-sand. 



The Wed- 
ding-Guest 
feareth 
that a 
Spirit is 
talking to 
him ; 



'LIII 

I fear thee and thy glittering eye, 
And thy skinny hand, so brown.'* — 
"Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest? 
This body dropt not down. 



LIV 

Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
Alone on a wide wide sea! 

And never a saint took pity on 
My soul in agony. 



Bui the an- 
cient Mar- 
iner assureth 
him of his 
bodily life, 
and pro- 
ceedeth to 
relate his 
horrible , 
penance. 



LV 

Thje many men, so beautiful! 

And they all dead did lie: 
And a thousand thousand slimy things 

Lived on; and so did I. 

39 



He despis- 
eth the 
creatures 
of the calm. 



40 



THE ANCIENT MARINEH 



And envi- 
eth that 
they should 
live, and so 
many lie 
dead. 



LVI 

I looked upon the rotting sea, 
And drew my eyes away; 

I looked upon the rotting deck, 
And there the dead men lay. 



LVII 
1 looked to Heaven, and tried to pray; 

But or ever a prayer had gusht, 
A wicked whisper came, and made 

My heart as dry as dust. 



But the 
curse liveth 
for him in 
the eye of 
the dead 
men. 



LVIII 

I closed my lids, and kept them close. 

And the balls like pulses beat; 
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky 
Lay like a load on my weary eye. 

And the dead were at my feet. 

LIX 

The cold sweat melted from their limbs, 

Nor rot nor reek did they: 
The look with which they looked on me 

Had never passed away. 

LX 

An orphan's curse would drag to Hell 

A spirit from on high; 
But oh! more horrible than that 

Is a curse in a dead man's eye! 
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse^ 

And yet I could not die. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



41 



LXI 

The moving Moon went up the sky, 

iVnd nowhere did abide: 
Softly she was going up, 

And a star or two beside — 



In his lone- 
liness and 
fixedness he 
yearneth 
towards the 
journeying 
Moon, and 
the stars 
that slill 
sojourn, ye«i 
still move 
onward ; 
and every- 
where the 
blue sky be- 
longs to 
them, and is 
their ap- 
pointed rest 
and their 
native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, 
as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival. 



LXII 

Her beams bemocked the sultry main, 

Like April hoar-frost spread; 
But where the ship's huge shadow lay, 
The charmed water burnt alway 
A still and awful red. 



LXIII 

Beyond the shadow of the ship, 

I watched the water-snakes: 
They moved in tracks of shining white, 
And when they reared, the elfish light 
Fell off in hoary flakes. 



By the light 
of the Moon 
he behold- 
eth God'? 
creatures of 
the great 
calm. 



LXIV 

Within the shadow of the ship 

I watched their rich attire: 
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, 
They coiled and swam; and every track 

Was a flash of golden fire. 



THE ANCIENT l^URINER 

LXV 

happy living things! no tongue 
Their beauty might declare: 

A spring of love gushed from my heartj 
And I blessed them unaware! 

Sure my kind saint took pity on me^ 
And I blessed them unaware. 

LXVI 

The selfsame moment I could pray; 

And from my neck so free 
The Albatross fell off, and sank 

like lead into the sea. 



^ 



PART THE FIFTH 

LXVII 

Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, 

Beloved from pole to pole! 
To Mary Queen the praise be given f 
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, 

That slid into my souL 



LXVIII 
The silly buckets oi; the deck, 

That had so long remained, 
I dreamt that they were filled with dew; 

And when I awoke, it rained. 



By grace of 
the holy 
Mother, the 
ancient 
Mariner is 
refreshed 
with rain. 



LXIX 

My lips were wet, my throat was cold, 
My garments all were dank; 

Sure I had drunken in my dreams, 
And still my body drank. 



LXX 

I moved, and could not feel my limbs. 

I was so light — almost 
I thought that I had died in sleep, 



And was a blessed ghost. 

43 



44 



THU. ANCIENT MARINER 



He heareth 
sounds, 
and seeth 
strange 
sights and 
commo- 
tions in the 
sky and the 
element. 



LXXI 

A.nd soon I heard a roaring wind; 

It did not come anear; 
But with its sound it shook the sails 

That were so thin and sere. 

LXXII 

The upper air burst into hfe! 

And a hundred fire-flags sheen. 
To and fro they were hurried about; 
And to and fro, and in and out, 

The wan stars danced between. 

LXXIII 

And the coming wind did roar more loud, 
And the sails did sigh like sedge; 

And the rain poured down from one black cloud ; 
The Moon was at its edge. 

LXXIV 

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 

The Moon was at its side: 
Like waters shot fiom some high crag, 
The lightning fell with never a jag, 

A river steep and wide. 



The bodies 
of the ship's 
crew are 
inspired, 
and the 
ship moves 
on. 



LXXV 

The loud wind never reached the ship, 
Yet now the ship moved on! 

Beneath the lightning and the Moon 
The dead men gave a groan. 



THE ANCIENl MARINER 



45 



LXXVI 
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, 

Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; 
It had been strange, even in a dream, 

To have seen those dead men rise. 

LXXVII 

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; 

Yet never a breeze up-blew; 
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, 

Where they were wont to do; 
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — 

We were a ghastly crew. 



LXXVIII 

The body of my brother's son 

Stood by me, knee to knee: 
The body and I pulled at one rope, 

But he said naught to me." 

LXXIX 

"I fear thee, ancient Mariner!" 

''Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! 
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, 
Which to their corses came again, 
But a troop of spirits blest: 

LXXX 

For when it dawned — they dropped their arms 
And clustered round the mast; 

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths. 
And from their bodies passed. 



But not by 
the souls of 
the men, 
nor by 
demons of 
earth or 
middle air, 
but by a 
blessed 
troop of an- 
gelic spirits, 
sent down 
by the invo. 
cation of 
the guard- 
ian saint. 



4s THE ANCIENT MARINER 

LXXXI 

Around, around, flew each sweet sound, 

Then darted to the Sun; 
Slowly the sounds came back again, 

Now mixed, now one by one. 

LXXXII 

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 

I heard the sky-lark sing; 
Sometimes all little birds that are, 
How they seemed to fill the sea and air 
With their sweet jargoning! 

LXXXIII 

And now 'twas Hke all instruments. 

Now hke a lonely flute; 
And now it is an angel's song, 

That makes the heavens be mute. 

LXXXIV 

It ceased; yet still the sails made on 
A pleasant noise till noon, 

A noise like of a hidden brook 
In the leafy month of June, 

That to the sleeping woods all night 
Singeth a quiet time. 

LXXXV 

Till noon we quietly sailed on, 
Yet never a breeze did breathe: 

Slowly and smoothly went the ship. 
Moved onward from beneath. 



THE ANCIENT ^L\RINER 



47 



LXXXVI 

Under the keel nine fathom deep, 
From the land of mist and snow, 

The spirit slid: and it was he 
That made the ship to go. 

The sails at noon left off their tune. 
And the ship stood still also. 



The lone- 
some Spirit 
from the 
south-pole 
carries on 
the ship as 
far as the 
Line, in 
obedience 
to the an- 
gelic troop, 
but still re- 
quireth ven- 
geance. 



LXXXVII 

The Sun, right up above the mast. 
Had fixed her to the ocean: 

But in a minute she 'gan stir, 
With a short uneasy motion — 

Backwards and forwards half her length 
With a short uneasy motion. 



LXXXVIII 
Then like a pawing horse let go, 

She made a sudden bound; 
It flung the blood into my head, 

And I fell down in a swound. 



LXXXIX 

How long in that same fit I lay, 

I have not to declare; 
But ere my living life returned, 
I heard and in mv soul discerned 

Two voices m tlie an. 



48 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



The Polar 
Spirit's fel- 
low de- 
mons, the 
invisible in- 
habitants of 
the ele- 
ment, take 
part in his 
wrong; and 
two of them 
relate, one 
to the other, 
that pen- 
ance long 
and heavy 
for the an- 
cient Mari- 
ner hath 
been ac- 
corded to 
the Polar 
Spirit, who 
returneth 
southward. 



xc 

'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man? 

By him who died on cross, 
With his cruel bow he laid full low, 
The harmless Albatross. 

XCI 

The spirit who bideth by himself 
In the land of mist and snow, 

He loved the bird that loved the man 
Who shot him with his bow.' 

XCII 

The other was a softer voice. 

As soft as honey-dew: 
Quoth he, *The man hath penance dc ; 

And penance more will do ' 



PART THE SIXTH 



XCIII 



FIRST VOICE 

'But tell me, tell me! speak again, 
Thy soft response renewing — 
What makes that ship drive on so fast^ 
What is the Ocean doing?' 

XCIV 

SECOND VOICE 

"Still as a slave before his lord, 

The Ocean hath no blast; 
His great bright eye most silently 
Up to the Moon is cast — 

xcv 

If he may know which w^ay to go: 
For she guides him smooth or griro 

See, brother, see! how gracioush^ 
She looketh down on him.' 



XCVI 

FIRST VOICE 

'But why drives on that ship so fast, 
Without or wave or wind?' 

SECOND VOICE 

*The air is cut away before, 
And closes from behind, 

49 



The Mar-' 
iner hath 
been cast 
into a 
trance; for 
the angelic 
power caus- 
eth the veS' 
sel to drive 
northward 
faster than 
human life 
could en- 
dure. 



59 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



XCVII 

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high; 

Or we shall be belated: 
For slow and slow that ship will go, 

When the Mariner's trance is abated.' 



The super- 
natural 
motion is 
retarded ; 
the Mariner 
awakes, and 
his penance 
begins 



XCVIII 
I woke, and we were sailing on 

As in a gentle weather: 
'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high. 

The dead men stood together. 



XCIX 

All stood together on the deck. 
For a charnel-dungeon fitter: 

All fixed on me their stony eyes 
That in the Moon did glitter. 



The pang, the curse, with which they died, 

Had never passed away: 
I could not draw my eyes from theirs. 

Nor turn them up to pray. 



The curse 
is finally 
expiated. 



CI 

And now this spell was snapt: once more 

I viewed the Ocean green, 
And looked far forth, yet little saw 

Of what had else been seen — 



THE ANCIENT ^L\RINER 



51 



CII 

Like one that on a lonesome road 
Doth walk in fear and dread; 

And having once turned round, walks on, 
And turns no more his head; 

Because he knows a frightful fiend 
Doth close behind him tread 

cm 

But soon there breathed a wind on me. 

Nor sound nor motion made: 
Its path was not upon the sea, 

In ripple or in shade. 

CIV 

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek 
Like a meadows-gale of spring — 

It mingled strangely with my fears, 
Yet it felt like a welcoming. 

CV 

Swiftly, swifth^ flew the ship. 

Yet she sailed softly too: 
, Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — 

On me alone it blew. 



CVI 

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed 
The light-house top I see? 

Is this the hill? is this the kii'k? 
Is this mine own countree? 



And the 
ancient 
Mariner b*> 
holdeth hia 
r2tixe 
country. 



52 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



CVII 
We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, 
And I with sobs did pray^ — 
*0 let me be awake, my God! 
Or let me sleep alway.' 

CVIII 

The harbour-bay was clear as glass, 

So smoothly it was strewn! 
And on the bay the moonlight lay, 

And the shadow of the Moon. 

CIX 

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, 
That stands above the rock: 

The moonlight steeped in silentness 
The steady weathercock. 



The angelic 
spirits leave 
the dead 
bodies, 



cx 

And the bay was white with silent light, 

Till rising from the same, 
Full many shapes, that shadows were, 

In crimson colours came. 



And appear 
in their own 
forms of 
lipbt 



CXI 

A little distance from the prow 
Those crimson shadows were: 

I turned my eyes upon the deck- 
Oh, Christ! what saw I there! 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 53 

CXII 
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, 

And, by the holy rood! 
A man all light, a seraph-man, 

On every corse there stood. 

CXIII 

This seraph-band, each v/aved his hand: 

It was a heavenly sight! 
They stood as signals to the land, 

Each one a lovely Hght; 

CXIV 

This seraph-band, each waved his hand; 

No voice did they impart — 
No voice; but oh! the silence sank 

Like music on my heart. 



cxv 

But soon I heard the dash of oars, 
I heard the Pilot's cheer; 

My head was turned perforce away, 
And I saw a boat appear. 



CXVI 

The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy, 
I heard them coming fast: 

Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy 
The dead men could not blast. 



55 THE ANCIENT MARINER 

CXVII 
I saw a third — I heard his voice: 

It is the Hermit good! 
He singeth loud his godly hymns . 

That he makes in the wood. 
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away' 

The Albatross's blood. 



PART THE SEVENTH 



CXVIII 

This Hermit good lives in that wood 
Which slopes down to the sea: 

How loudly his sweet voice he rears! 

He loves to talk with marineres 
That come from a far countree. 



I'lie Hermit 
of the wood 



CXIX 

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve— * 

He hath a cushion plump: 
It is the moss that wholly hides 

The rotted old oak-stump. 

cxx 

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk, 
'Why this is strange, 1 trow! 

IVhere are those lights so many and fair. 
That signal made but now?' 



CXXI 

Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said — 
'And they answered not our cheer! 

The planks look warped! and see those sails 
How thin they are and sere! 

I never saw aught like to them, 
Unless perchance it were 

55 



Approach- 
etn the ship 
with won- 
der. 



66 



THE ANXIENT MARINER 



CXXIl 

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 

My forest-brook along; 
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, 
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below 

That eats the she-wolf's young.' 

CXXIII 
*Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look' — 

(The Pilot made reply) 
*I am a-feared' — 'Push on, push on!' 

Said the Hermit cheerily. 

CXXIV 

The boat came closer to the ship, 
But I nor spake nor stirred; 

The boat came close beneath the ship, 
And straight a sound was heard. 



The ship 
snddenly 
sinketh. 



The ancient 
Mariner is 
saved in the 
Pilot's boat. 



cxxv 

Under the water it rumbled on, 

Still louder and more dread* 
It reached the ship, it split the bay; 

The ship went down like lead. 

CXXVI 

stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, 

Which sky and ocean smote, 
Like one that hath been seven days drowned 

My body lay afloat; 
But swift as dreams, myself I found 

Within thp Pilot's boat. 



THE ANCIENT MARINER 



61 



CXXVII 
Upon the whirl, where sank the ship. 

The boat spun round and round: 
And all was still, save that the hill 

Was telling of the sound. 

CXXVIII 

I moved my lips — the Pilot shrieked 

And fell down in a fit; 
The Holy Hermit raised his e3^es 

And prayed where he did sit, 

CXXIX 

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy, 

Who now doth crazy go. 
Laughed loud and long, and all the while 

His eyes went to and fro. 
*Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see, 
The Devil knows how to row.' 

cxxx 

And now, all in my own countree, 

I stood on the firm land! 
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, 

And scarcelv he could stand. 



CXXXI 

*0 shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!' 
The Hermit crossed his brow. 

'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say — 
What manner of man art thou?' 



The ancient 
Mariner 
earnestly 
entreateth 
the Hermit 
to shrieve 
him; and 
the penauc<i 
of life falls 
on him. 



58 



THE ANCIENT iMARlNER 



CXXXII 

Forthwith this frame of mine was WTenched 

With a woful agony, 
Which forced me to l)egin my tale: 

And then it left me free. 



And ever 
and anon 
throughout 
his future 
life an 
aponv con- 
strain eth 
him to 
travel from 
land to 
'and. 



CXXXIII 

Since then, at an uncertain hour, 

That agony returns; 
And till my ghastly tale is told, 

This heart within me burns. 

CXXXIV 

I pass, like night, from land to land; 

I have strange power of speech; 
That moment that his face I see, 
I know the man that must hear me: 

To him my tale 1 teach. 



cxxxv 

What loud uproar bursts from that door? 

The Wedding-Guests are there: 
But in the garden-bower the bride 

And bride-maids singing are; 
And hark the little vesper bell. 

Which biddeth me to prayer? 



CXXXYI 

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been 

Alone on a wide wide sea: 
So lonely 'twas, that God himself 

Scarce seemed there to be. 



THE ANCIENT J^LVRINER 



58 



CXXXVII 

O sweeter than the marriage-feast^ 

'Tis sweeter far to me, 
To walk together to the kirk 

With a goodly company!— 

CXXXVIII 

To walk together to the kirk. 

And all together pray, 
While each to his great Father bends, 
Old men, and babes, and loving friends, 

And youths and maidens gay! 



CXXXIX 

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell 
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest I 

He prayeth well, who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 



And to 
teach, by 
his own ex- 
ample, love 
and rever- 
ence t© all 
things that 
God made 
and loveth. 



CXL 

He prayeth best, who loveth best 
All things both great and small; 

For the dear God w^ho loveth us, 
He made and loveth all." 



CXLl 

The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 
Whose beard with age is hoar, 

Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest 
Turned from the bride o^room's door. 



60 THE ANCIENT I^L^RINER 

CXLII 
He went like one that hath been stunned, 

And is of sense forlorn: 
A sadder and a wiser man, 

He rose the morrow morn. 



N OTES 



Page 27, stanza I. — As in the old ballads, the speaker is not 
indicated, but suggested. 

Page 27, stan. III. — This and stanzas VIII and IX set the 
Mariner's tale strongly in contrast -v^ith the wedding-feast For 
a similar use of contrast see Keats's Eve of St. Agnes. 

Page 27, stan. III. — What does the abruptness of the open- 
ing ''There was a ship," show of the Mariner's state of mind? 
In the stanzas that follow, and throughout, notice the rapidity 
with which event follows event and picture picture; not a word 
is wasted. "Eftsoons" means ''immediately." 

Page 28, stan. VII, VIII. — ^A poetical way of saying that 
the ship sailed south until it reached the equator. 

Page 28, stan. IX. — "Nodding" admirably suggests the 
contagious influence of the music. 

Page 29, stan. XII. — The swiftness and persistence of pursuit 
is echoed in the closer crowding of the rhymes. 

Page 29, stan. XIV, " Clifts. "—Cliffs, the towering walls 
of the icebergs. "Drifts" here refers to driving or drifting 
mist. 

Page 30, stan. XV, "Swound." — Swoon. Notice how the 
last line of the stanza makes suddenly remote and ghostly the 
realistic noises mentioned in the preceding line. 

Page 30, stan, XIX, "Vespers nine." — Vespers, the twilight 
hour of prayer in the Catholic Church, may be used in a general 
sense, "vespers nine," meaning merely "nine days"; or in a more 
definite sense, showing that the bird, after sporting about the 
tship during the day, came at tmhght to roost on the mast. 

61 



62 NOTES 

Page 31, Stan. XX. — The change which comes over the Mari- 
ner *s face at the recollection of his crime is suggested by 
the frightened exclamation of his hearer. Notice that "sugges- 
tion" of this sort is employed throughout, in place of plain 
statement. 

Page 32, stan. XXI, "Upon the right." — The ship has turned 
northward. 

Page 32, stan. XXIV, "Then all averred," etc.— Do not 
•emphasize "killed" or "bird" as the metre tempts you to 
do. The meaning is, "All averred that the bird I killed had 
brought the fog," etc. 

Page 33, stan. XXV. — ^I'he suddenness of the apparition 
is emphasized by the powerful word "burst." 

Page 33, stan. XXVII. — The size of the sun is significant. 
Dry air, rarified by heat, allows objects to be seen in their proper 
size, not enlarged by refraction. 

Page 36, stan. XXXIX, "Grin." — Suggests the dra^^Tl mus- 
cles, distorted by thirst. 

Page 36, stan. XLI. — "Drove" is very graphic and true here. 
As the boat moved along the blank horizon, its swiftness would 
not be noticed, but w^ien measured against the stationary disk 
of the sun, it would become suddenly apparent. 

Page 37, stan. XLIV. — The following stanza describing 
the "woman's mate," Death, was omitted after the first 
edition: 

His bones were black with many a crack, 
All bare and black, I w^een; 
Jet black and bare, save where with rust 
Of mouldy damp and charnel crust 
They're patched with purple and green. 

Can you see any reason for the omission? 

Page 37, stan. XL VII (Gloss). — The "courts of the Sun" 
are the tropics; the sudden coming on of a tropical night 



iNOTES 63 

is given in two phrases unforgettably. The whisper ot 
the vanishing keel increases the sense of tropical stillness. 

Page 38, stan. L, ''Thump, lump." — Notice the fearless use 
of the most commonplace, even vulgar words for poetic ends. 

Page 40, stan. LVIII. — The long-drawn third line gives an 
impression of weariness, which is increased by retarding the stanza 
^^•ith an extra line and rhyme- word. ^ 

Page 43, stan. LXVIII, "Silly."— -Useless, because of the 
drouth. Look up in the dictionary the various meanings which 
the word has had. 

Page 44, stan. LXXIV, "Like waters shot," etc. — ^The figure, 
as applied to "sheet lightning," is very bold. Does it seem to 
you justifiable? 

Page 46, stan. LXXXII.— The last syllable of "jargoning" 
should not be stressed, but pronounced lightly a? in prose. 
The effect of rhyme thus produced by an unstressed syl- 
lable matching one of heavy stress is very delicate and 
beautiful. 

Page 46, stan. LXXXII, LXXXIII, LXXXtV.— Notice how 
the accumulating details strengthen the sense of quietness and 
blessing. 

Page 47, stan. LXXXVII. — The extra syllable of the rhyme- 
lines, and the shifted accents in lines 3 and 5, suggest uneasiness. 
The repetition of Kne 4 suggests the monotonous back and fill of 
the ship. 

Page 49, stan. XCV, "If he may know." — In order that he 
may know, to see if he can discover. 

Page 51, stan. CVI. — Notice that the lighthouse, hill, and 
church reappear in the inverse order of their disappearance. It 
is in little details like this th?.t the exactness of the poet's imagina- 
tion comes out. 

Page 52, stan. CVII, "Let me be awake." — Let me prove to 
be awake, let this prove to be no dream. 



64 NOTES 

Page 53, stan. CXII. — The shapes which the Mariner sees 
ar^ the reflections upon the water, or perhaps upon the moonUt 
air, of the seraph-men or angehc spirits, who now emerge from the 
dead bodies of the sailors on the deck, and stand above them. 
The Mariner is standing by the rail, looking out to shore, and can 
see only by reflection what takes place on deck. 

Page 58, stan. CXXXV. — Note the reversion to the contrast 
used in the first few stanzas. 

Page 60, stan. CXLII, "Of sense forlorn." — An expansion 
of the idea given above in "stunned"} it means "'deprived of sensi- 
bility or power of feeling sensations." 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 



INTRODUCTION 



The Vision oj Sir Launfal was written in 1848, the 
year of Lowell's greatest poetical activity. He was 
twenty-nine years old, and had been graduated from 
Harvard College ten years before. During his college 
course, he had lived a thoroughly independent intellect- 
ual Hfe, making up for his neglect of the regular routine 
of study by eager reading of imaginative literature, 
especially poetry and drama. After graduation he 
had tried his hand at the law, and for a short time at 
business, but the bent of his nature was already so 
strongly toward a literary life that he was unhappy 
until he had put everything else behind him, and launched 
into the pubhcation of a magazine, called the Pioneer. 
The magazine had been short-hved, owing partly to 
the inexperience of its editors, partly to the fact that 
the literary standard which ' they set up was too high 
for the reading pubHc of the day. After the collapse 
of the Pioneer^ Lowell had bravely resolved to take 
the full consequences of his abandonment of the law, 
and trust to his pen for support. The determination 

67 



68 . liNTRODUCTION 

required courage, for his father had recently lost his 
fortune, and he was himself eager to marry. He had 
taken up the hazardous pursuit of letters, however, with 
the lighthearted confidence characteristic of him; his 
letters of this period are full of fine enthusiasm and 
buoyant self-belief. By 1844 his contributions to the 
magazines had begun to bring in a sufficient income 
to enable him to marry the woman whose fine gifts of 
mind and heart ripened everything that was best in 
his nature. The name of Maria White occurs every- 
where in his letters of this time, and is always mentioned 
with a kind of reverent ecstasy which shows how power- 
ful her influence had been in stirring the mystical depths 
of his heart, and preparing it for its mission of song. 

He had taken his bride to the old family mansion 
of Elmwood, where he had been born, and where he 
was to die. With the exception of his residence abroad 
as minister to Spain and to England, Lowell's home 
throughout his life was at Elmwood. The house is 
still one of the interesting sights of Cambridge. It 
stands back from the encroachment of modern houses 
and street-car lines, in a shelter of splendid Englisli 
elms, and there is a flavor of more generous days in its 
broad lines, its small-paned windows, and its rich colonial 
white and yellow. In its nursery, Lowell's mother 
had sung to him strange old Scotch and English ballnds 
^ne of which, the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, she liKed 



I 



INTRODUCTION 69 

to think had an ancestor of her own for its hero.* In 
the south front room of the upper story,, Lowell had 
made his "den" as a boy. The walls w^ere lin^d with 
books and old engravings; in their midst, a panel brought 
from the house of one of the seventeenth century Lowells, 
in Newbury, Massachusetts, bore this inscription in 
Latin: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; 
in all things, charity," — a legend which seems almost 
to sum up Lowell's own character and creed. From 
the upper windows there was a view over the trees 
to Brighton, Brookline, and Roxbury, with the great 
gilded dome of the State House on the left, and on th^ 
right, the silver coil of the Charles winding through 
the marshes, which in summer were a vivid green, chang- 
ing in the wind like silk, and in autumn were gorgeous 
with ochreous reds and sombre purples. 

Here, in the midst of beautiful, familiar scenes, 
with the inspiration of his wife and his many friends 
urging him to his best, Lowell put forth his first really 
mature work. He had already published two srnall 
volumes of poetry, but he was conscious of much more 
noble powers than had yet found expression. In 1848 
he wrote and published the two works which have taken 
deepest hold upon popular affection, the Bigloiv Papers, 
and The Vision of Sir Launfal. The first represents 
him in his quality of humorist, a quality in him so genu- 
*Her maiden name was Spence. 



70 INTRODUCTIOl^ 

ine and racy that Thackeray lamented that he should 
ever have abandoned the humorous vein for more "seri- 
ous" 'efforts. The second shows his purely poetic power, 
if not in its highest, at least in its most genial and lovable 
manifestation. Sir Launfal has come to be considered 
Lowell's typical poem. It is known to thousands who 
have never heard of The Cathedral or the Commemoration . 
Ode] and to whom the important critical writings of the Jli 
author's maturer manhood are no more than an abstrac- 
tion. There are some good reasons to entitle it to this 
pre-eminence. 



II 



The poem is founded upon a tradition of great an- 
tiquity, about which many poets, from the romancers 
of the middle ages, Chretien de Troyes and Wolfram 
von Eschenbach, to Wagner and Tennyson, have woven 
their fancies. According to this tradition, the San 
Greal, or Holy Grail, was a cup made of one great sap- 
phire, out of which Jesus drank wine, at the Last Supper 
with his disciples. It was brought by Joseph of Arima- 
thea into England, where for many years it was pre- 
served in his family, visited by pilgrims, and adored as 
a holy relic. One obligation rested upon those to whose 
keeping the Grail was entrusted; they must be chaste 
and pure in heart. One of the descendants of Joseph 
broke his vow of chastity, and the Grail disappeared. 
From this time on it was sought for through the whole 
world by the knights of the Round Table, until it was 
at last found by the stainless Galahad. 

For the purposes of his poem, Lowell has, as he says, 
" enlarged the circle of competition in search of the mirac- 
ulous cup in such a manner as to include, not only other 

persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also 

11 



72 INTRODUCTION 

a period of time subsequent to the supposed date ot 
Arthur's reign." He has also enlarged the moral mean- 
ing of the San Greal story, by making, not chastity, but 
charit}^ and humble Ijrotherly love the condition of 
success in the search. Sir Launfal, in his vision, starts 
upon the quest with his heart full of high emprise, to 
be sure, but also full of youthful pride and intolerance. 
As he dashes from his castle gate, clad in shining mail, 
into the light and fragrance of the summer morning, 
the beggar crouching at the gate shocks his dainty sense. 
For as yet he sees only with the bodily eye. A piece of 
gold flung in scorn is the only answer he can make to 
a fellow-creature's appeal. But in the long years of 
fiis quest, his vision is purged and spiritualized by suffer- 
ing; his eye? are bathed in the '^ euphrasy and rue" 
of human sympathy. When he returns, an old, worn 
man, to find his earldom seized by another, and to be 
himself driven from his palace gate into the shelterless 
storm, he sees no longer with the bodil}^ eye the husk 
of things, but with the eye of the spirit their abiding 
essences. Beneath the rags and sores of the leper, hn| 
sees a brother made in the image of God, and shares 
with him his crust and his draught of water. Then, 
suddenly before his astonished eyes, the leper rises and 
stands radiant, the very Christ in whose name the alms 
was given, and the wooden bowl with which he has 
dipped the water from the frozen stream sways before 



INTRODUCTION 73 

him as a chalice of dazzling sapphire, filled with his 
Lord's blood. The Holy Grail, that he has sought 
through the ends of the earth, he finds at his own palace 
gate, because there for the first time he has been perfect 
in charity. 

The lesson is a fine one, worthy of the fine moral 
nature and fine enthusiasm for the things of the spirit, 
which Lowell inherited from his Puritan ancestors. 
It is doubtless in large measure because of this simple 
and eloquent teaching that the poem has taken its deep 
hold upon American readers. Our race has, in all ages, 
been distinguished by an intense interest in ethical 
ideals, in questions of creed and conduct. Lowell was, 
by nature and antecedents, fitted to appeal to such an 
interest. He came from a long line of Puritan enthusi- 
asts, men of light and leading in their day. Even in 
youth, his letters are studded with reflections upon the 
deeper moral meanings of life, and here and there we 
light upon a sentence of real spiritual wisdom. Writing 
to his friend J. B. Loring, in 1842, he says: 

You say that life seems to be a struggle after nothing 
in particular. But you are wrong. It is a struggle after the 
peaceful home of the soul in a natural and loving state of 
life. Men are mostly unconscious of the object of their 
struggle, but it is always connected in some way with this. 

His morality was never mere ethics. There was 
always in it a tinge of that more mysterious and exalted 



74 INTRODUCTION 

State of mind which we call religion To the same 
friend, he writes: 

1 was at Mary's, and happening to say something of the 
presence of spirits (of whom, I said, I was often dimly aware), 
Mr. Putnam entered into an argument with me on spiritual matters. 
As I was speaking, the whole system rose up before me like a vague 
Destiny looming from the abyss. I never before so clearly felt 
the spirit of God in me and around me. The whole room seemed 
to be full of God. The air seemed to waver to and fro with the 
presence of something, I knew not what. 

And again he says: "It would have taken a very 
little to make a St. Francis* of me." The Vision of 
Sir Launfal stands by right as Lowell's typical poem, 
because it unites these two strains of moral and religious 
feeling. On one side, it teaches the simple human 
duties of sympathy and humility, on the other, it gives 
a hint of the mystical kinship between God and man, 
the union of Christ with the leper, which is the core of 
religion. Sir Launfal, sharing his crust wuth the leper, 
is doing exactly what St. Francis would have done; 
and the poet has put his heart into the creation because 
he feels a peculiar kinship with it. 

But all this, excellent as it is, would never, of itself, 
make a poem. There must be added to the moral 

*St. Francis of Assisi in 1225 founded the order of the Fran- 
ciscan or Barefoot friars, in protest against the riches and cor-; 
niption of the existing monastic orders. 



u uur*^ ' 



INTRODUCTION 75 

idea something which, for want of a better word, we 
call beauty, and this beauty must work itself out in tw^o 
ways at least — in picture and in melody. These are 
the two things without which poetry cannot exist; the 
poet must make us see his thought, not as an abstraction, 
but as a reality glowing with color and movement; and 
he mu«t do this through the medium of musical language. 
As regards the first of these prerequisites of poetry, 
there can be no doubt in the case of Sir Launfal. It 
is full of pictures too vivid to be easily forgotten. The 
summer landscape of the first prelude, w^iere June ha^ 
pitched her green tents round about the frowning gray 
walls and towers of Sir Launfal's castle; the young 
knight, girt in gilded armor, flashing across the draw- 
bridge into the dawn, while the beggar crouches in a 
corner of the portal; the elfin palace of arches and colon- 
nades and delicate domes which the winter brook 
builds for itself, these, and many other pictures, will 
linger in a reader's mind after the story and its "mean 
ing" have been forgotten. The descriptions of natur 
in the poem gain vividness from the fact that, in writing 
them, the poet had, in Wordsworth's phrase, "his eye 
on the object." In a letter to C. F. Briggs, he says' 



Last night I walked to Watertown over the snow, with the 
new moon before me. Orion was rising before me, the stillness 
of the rields around me was delicious, broken only by the tinkle 



76 INTRODUCTION 

of a little brook which runs too swiftly for Frost to catch. My 
picture of the brook in Sir Launfal was drawn from it. 

But whether drawn from actual scenes or from 
fancy, the pictures of the poem are abundant and satis- 
iymg. It embodi-^s its thought continually in picture, 
and is in this respect a true poem. 

With respect to the second requisite of all poetry, 
melody, Sir Launfal cannot be so confidently praised. 
Lowell had a stout word to say in his own defense against 
the charge of harsh versifying. He says: 

I may be a bad poet, (I don't meaii to say I think I am), 
but I am a good versifier. I write with far more ease in verse 
than I do in prose. There is not a rough verse in my book which 
is not intentional. I don't believe the man ever lived who put 
more conscience into his verse than I do. 

All this we can agree to heartily, while denying to 
Lowell's verse the highest quality of music, such as 
one finds, for example, in Shelley and Coleridge. Some 
passages of Sir Launfal are musically effective: to take ■] 
random examples, the joyous movement and reiteration 
of rhyme in the sixth stanza of the first prelude, and 
even more eminently so the slow, dreamy movement 
of the opening stanza. But there are, on the other hand, 
many lines which do not "read themselves." Compara- 
lively few persons are sensitive to the more delicale 



1 



liNTRODuOTlON 77 

effects of metre, and to bring these effects to the notice 
of others not so sensitive would require more space than 
is available here. But the student will do well to con- 
trast the movement of a few lines, such as, 

For other couriers we should not lack, 
or. 

As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate, 
with 

The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 

and 

First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay. 

It would be well, too, to read the poem aloud, to- 
gether with some poem noteworthy for its melody, 
such as Coleridge's Kuhla Khan or Keats's Eve of St. 
Agnes, and to attempt to note the comparative effects 
as regards the mere pleasantness of sound of the verse. 

Another consideration which must enter into our 
judgment of a .poem, besides its picturesqueness and 
its melod}^, is its form. The greatest poems have a 
shape, an outline, so to speak, which is in itself beautiful. 
There is no redundancy about them anywhere; they are 
clean-cut and balanced, part to part, as a fine statue or 



/S lINlKUDLUTiUJN 

a fine building. Will Sir Launjal stand this test? Are 
the opening stanzas of moral reflection really in place 
in. a poem which conveys its meaning perfectly without 
them? Is the famous rhapsody begmning, ''And whatjl| 
is so rare as a day in June?" in spite of its beauty, any- 
thing but a beautiful excrescence? Both these passages 
are, of course, excused by the opening stanza, where 
the poet compares himself with the musician dreamily 
extemporizing in various keys until he is drawn into 
his main theme; and we must bear in mind too that the 
poem was composed at high speed, in a space cf about 
forty-eight hours, during which Lowell scarcely a'tc or 
slept. But after all is the excuse sufficient? Is the 
poet not really a composer, rather than an improviser, 
subject, therefore, to more stringent laws of form? 

It can be urged, however, that this rhapsody on 
June weather merges naturally into the description of 
the summer landscape surrounding the old gray castle, 
and helps to bring out the symbohsm of the forces of 
natural joy and common happiness besieging the forces 
of dark pride and selfishness. But, even if we grant 
this, does it apply to the second prelude? The contrast 
here is between the warmth and Christmas glee inside 
the castle, and the wintry desolation without; yet the 
picture of the elfin palace built by the brook is the reverse 
of desolate. We must admit, therefore, that the poem 
proper is adorned with extraneous ornament; it has not 



INTRODUCTION 79 

a pure outline, nor pure proportions, such as may be 
seen, for example, in the Rwie of the Ancient Mariner. 

But observation of these particuJars in which Sir 
Launfal comes short of the highest, will only make 
clearer, it is to be hoped, the number and excellence 
of the beauties it possesses. If it has not the pure out- 
line of a statue, perhaps it is because it has the abun- 
dant bloom and luxuriant leafage of a plant; let us enjoy 
it for what it is, after once seeing clearly what it is not 



THE YISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 



The Vision of Sir Launfal 



PRELUDE TO PART FIRST 

Over his keys the musing organistj 

Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
First lets his fingers wander as they list, 

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay: 
5 Then, as the touch of his loved instrument 

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, 
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 

Along the wavering vista of his dream. 



Not only around our infancy 
10 Doth heaven with all its splendors lie; 
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
We Sinais chmb and know it not. 
Over our manhood bend the skies; 

Against our fallen and traitor lives 
16 The great winds utter prophesies; 

With our faint hearts the mountain strives; 
Its arms outstretched, the Druid wood 

Waits with its benedicite; 

83 



84 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

And to our age's drowsy blood 

Still shouts the inspiring sea. 
Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us; 

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, 
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, 

We bargain for the graves we lie in; 
At the Devil's booth are all things sold, 
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold; 

For a cap and bells our lives we pay. 
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking; 

'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 
'Tis only God may be had for the asking; 
No price is set on the lavish summer; 
June may be had by the poorest comer. 



And what is so rare as a day in June? is 

Then, if ever, come perfect days; 
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays; 
Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; 20 

Every clod feels a stir of might. 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And, grasping blindly above it for light, 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; 
The flush of hfe may well be seen 2a 

Thrilling back over hills and valleys; 
The cowslip startles in meadows green, 

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, 



1 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 85 

And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean 

To be some happy creature's palace; 
The little bird sits at his door in the sun, 

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
5 And lets his illumined being o'errun 

With the deluge of summer it receives; 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, 
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; 
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — 
».oIn the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? 



Now is the high-tide of the year. 

And whatever of life hath ebbed away 

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer 
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay: 
15 Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, 

We are happy now because God wills it; 

No matter how barren the past may have been, 

'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; 

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well 
20 How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; 

We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing 

That skies are clear and grass is growing; 

The breeze comes whispering in our ear 

That dandeUons are blossoming near, 
25 That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 

That the river is bluer than the sky, 

That the robin is plastering his house hard by; 



86 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNi^Al, 

And if the breeze kept the good news back, 
For other couriers we should not lack; 

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,— 
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, 
Warmed with the new wine of the year, 6 

Tells all in his lusty crowing! 

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; 
Everything is happy now, 

Everything is upward striving; 
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true Vb 

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 

'Tis the natural way of living: 
Who knows whither the clouds have fled? 

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; 
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, 16 

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; 
The soul partakes the season's youth, 

x\nd the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe 
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, 

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow an 

What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
Remembered the keeping of his vow? 



PART FlRSl^ 



•^My golden spurs now bring to me, 
And bring to me m}^ richest mail, 
For to-morrow I go over land and sea 
In search of the Holy Grail; 
5 Shall never a bed for me be spread. 
Nor shall a pillow be under my head, 
Till I begin my vow to keep; 
Here on the rushes will I sleep, 
And perchance there may come a vision true 
10 Ere day create the world anew." 

Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim, 
Slumber fell like a cloud on him, 
And into his soul the vision flew. 



II 

The crows flapped over by twos and threes, 
15 In the pool drowsed the cattle up to their knees 
The little birds sang as if it were 
The one day of summer in all the year, 

And the very leaves seemed to sing on the trees; 

The castle alone in the landscape lay 

87 , 



88 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

Like an outpost of winter, dull and gray; 

'Twas the proudest hall in the North Countree, 

And never its gates might opened "be, 

Save to lord or lady of high degree; 

Summer besieged it on every side, 

But the churlish stone her assaults defied; 

She could not scale the chilly wall, 

Though round it for leagues her pavilions tall 

Stretched left and right, 

Over the hills and out of sight; 

Green and broad was every tent, 

And out of each a murmur went 
Till the breeze fell off at night. 



Ill 

The drawbridge dropped with a surly clang, 

And through the dark arch a charger sprang, is 

Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight. 

In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 

It seemed the dark castle had gathered all 

Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall 

In his siege of three hundred summers long, 20 

And binding them all in one blazing sheaf. 

Had cast them forth: so, young and strong. 
And lightsome as a locust-leaf, 
Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, 
To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 21 



THE VISION Ot SIR LAUNFAL 89 



IV 



It was morning on hill and stream and tree, 
And morning in the young knight's heart; 
Only the castle moodily 
Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
6 And gloomed by itself apart; 
The season brimmed all other things up 
Fuir as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's cup. 



As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gatt., 
10 He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by the same. 
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate; 

And a loathing over Sir Launfal came; 
The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill, 
The flesh 'neath his armor did shrink and crawl, 
15 And midway its leap his heart stood still 
Like a frozen waterfall; 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature. 
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature, 
7 ) And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, — 
So he tossed him a piece of ^old in scorn. 



90 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

VI 

The leper raised not the gold from the dust; 

''Better to me the poor man's crust, 
Better the blessing of the poor, 
Though I turn me empty from his door; 
That is no true alms which the hand can hold; 5 

He gives nothing but worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty; 
But he who gives a slender mite. 
And gives to that which is out of sight. 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty lo 

Which runs through all and doth all unite, — • 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 
The heart outstretches its eager palms. 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before/' is 



PRELUDE TO PART SECOND 

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak 
From the snow five thousand summers old; 

On open wold and hill-top bleak 

It had gathered all the cold, 
5 And whirled it like sleet on the Avanderer's cheek- 

It carried a shiver everywhere 

From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare^ 

The little brook heard it and built a roof 

'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof: 
10 All night by the w^hite stars' frosty gleams 

He groined his arches and matched his beams; 

Slender and clear were his crystal spars 

As the lashes of light that trim the stars: 

He sculptured every summer delight 
15 In his halls and chambers out of sight; 

Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 

Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, 

Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees 

Bending to counterfeit a breeze; 
20 Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 

But silvery mosses that downw^aid grew; 

Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 

With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; 

Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear 

91 



92 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here 

He had caught the nodding buh^ush-tops 

And hung them thickl}^ with diamond drops, 

Which ■ crystalled the beams of moon and sun, A 

And made a star of every one. 

No mortal builder's most rare device 

Could match this winter-palace of ice; 

'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay 

In his depths serene through the summer day, lo 

Each flitting shadow of earth and *sky, 

Lest the happy model should be lost, 
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 

By the elfin builders of the frost. 



Within the hall are song and laughter, t« 

The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly. 
A.nd sprouting is every corbel and rafter 

With lightsome green of ivy and holiy; 
Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 
Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; . ^ 

The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 

And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; 
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 

Hunted to death in its galleries blind; 
/^nd swift little troops of silent sparks, - M 

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, 
Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks 

Like herds of startled deei. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL m 

But the wind without was eager and sharp, 
Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, 
And rattles and wrings 
The icy strings, 
5 Singing, in dreary monotone, 
A Christmas carol of its own, 
Whose burden still, as he might guess, 
Was — "Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!*^ ^ 

The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch 
10 As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch ; 
And he sat in the gateway and saw all night 
The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, 
Through the window-slits of the castle old, 
Build out its piers of ruddy light 
15 Against the drift of the cold. 



PART SECOND 



1 



.1 



There was never a leaf on bush or tree, 
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
The river was dumb and could not speak, 

For the frost's swift shuttles its shroud had spun 
A single crow on the tree-top bleak 5 

From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun ; 
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold. 
As if her veins were sapless and old 
And she rose up decrepitly 
For a last dim look at earth and sea. 10 



II 



Sir Launfal turned from his own hard gate. 
For another heir in his earldom sate; 
An old, bent man, worn out and frail, 
He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; 
Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 15 

No more on his surcoat was blazoned the eros% 
But deep in his soul the sign he wore. 
The badge of the suffering and the poor. 

94 



THE VISION or SIR-LAUNFAL 95 

III 

Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 
Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 
For it was just at the Christmas time ; 
So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier clime, 
5 And sought for a shelter from cold and snow 
In the light and warmth of long ago ; 
He sees the ciiake-like caravan crawl 
O'er the edge of the desert, black and small, 
Then nearer and nearer, till, one b}^ one, 

10 He can count the camels in the sun. 
As over the red-hot sands they pass 
To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 
The little spring laughed and leapt in the shade, 
And with its own self like an infant played, 

15 And waved its signal of palms. 



IV 

''For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms"; — 
The happy camels may reach the spring, 
But Sir Launfal sees naught save the grewsome thing. 
The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone, 
20 That cowered beside him, a thing as lone 
And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas. 
In the desolate horror of his disease. 



96 THF, VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 

V 

And Sir Launfal said, — "I behold in thee 

An image of Him who died on the tree; 

Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 

Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,- 

And to thy hfe were not denied 

I'he wounds in the hands and feet and side: 

Mild Mary^s Son, acknowledge me; 

Behold, through him, I give to thee^" 



VI 



"^ nen the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes 

And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he lo 
Remembered in what a haughtier guise 

He had flung an alms to leprosie. 
When he caged his young life up in gilded mail 
And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
The heart within him was ashes and dust; *6 

He parted in twain his single crust. 
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink; 
'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 

'Twas water out of a wooden bowl, — 2v 

Vet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 

And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. 



THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 117 

Vli 

As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast tec^iy 
A light shone round about the place; 
The leper no longer crouched at his sidt, 
But stood before him glorified, 
5 Shining and tall and fair and straight 
As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,— 
Himself the Gate whereby men can 
Enter the temple of God in Man. 



VIII 



His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, 
10 And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on the brine, 
That mingle their softness and quiet in one 
With the shaggy unrest they float down upon; 
And the voice that was calmer than silence said. 
"Lo, it is I, be not afraid! 
15 In many climes, without avail, 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy GraiL 
Behold, it is here, — ^this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; 
This crust is my body broken for thee, 
2cThis water His blood that died on the tree; 
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
In whatso we share with another's need' 
Not what we give, but what we share 



96 'mHi visiujM ur am ijAvswaij 



For the gift without the giver is bare; 
Who gives himself with his alms feeds th: 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me " 



IX 

Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound 
'"The Grail in my castle here is found. 
Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 
Let it be the spider^s banquet-hall; 
He must be fenced with stronger mail 
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail.'* 



X 

The castle gate stands open now, lO 

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 

^s the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; 
No longer scowl the turrets tall. 

The Summer's long siege at last is o*er; 

When the first poor outcast went in at the do«j2, u 

She entered with him in disguise, 

And mastered the fortress by surprise; 

There is no spot she loves so well on ground, 

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round; 

The meanest serf on Sir LaunfaPs land w 

Has hall and bower at his command; 

And there's no poor man m the North Countree 

But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 



NOTES 



PRELUDE TO PART 1 

Page 83, first stanza. — Can you discover why this stanza i.h 
more pleasing to the ear than most of the others? What use 
«s made of alHteration? Compare with this stanza Brownmg's 
poem Abt Vogler, for a more elaborate working out of imagery 
suggested by music. 

Page 83, lines 9-10.— An allusion to Wordsworth's Ode on 
the Intimations of Immortality, particularly to the line "Heaven 
Ues about us in our infancy." Read the Ode. 

Page 83, line 12. — Mount Sinai, the mountain upon winch 
Moses talked vnth. God, when the children of Israel were coming 
back from captivity in Egypt. What is implied, therefore, in the 
phrase, "We Sinais climb"? 

Page 83, Une 17. — ^The epithet "Druid" has here a double 
propriety. The Druids were aged men and priests; the vener- 
ableness of the wood, therefore, and its power to bless, are in the 
poet's mind. 

Page 84, line 7. — Make clear to yourself by expansion the 
figure of speech involved in the phrase "Devil's booth." 

Page 84, lines 14-15. — Keep in mind the first stanza. As 
the musician who is extemporizing, letting "his fingers wander 
as they list," follows wherever chance leads him, so the poet is 
drawn aside by the chance word "June" into the rapturous con- 
templation of June weather, although strictly it has no connection 
with his theme. 



100 NOIES 

Page 84, line 17. — Expand the image suggested in "Then 
Heaven tries earth if it be in tune." 

Page 85, hne 10, "Nice." — Dehcately discriminating. Look 
up the curious history of the word in a good dictionaiy. 

Page 85, Hues 11-14. — The four opening Hnes are of course 
figurative, not Hteral. 

Page 85, hne 21. — In "We may shut our eyes," etc., notice 
how the poet cleverly fills out his picture not by direct descrip- 
tion, but by indirect liints which we more readily accept. Notice 
the "internal rhyme," page 86, line 4; is there anything in the 
thought to give it significance? 



PART I 



Page 87, line 13. — Observe, in the dream, which follows, 
that the knight sees himself objectively, as another person, and 
also subjectively, since he knows the thoughts of his own heart. 
Is this untrue to the facts of the dream-world? 

Page 88, line 1. — The figure first suggested by the word 
"out-posts," is made clearer a few lines further on by the idea 
of siege and assault, and becomes very clear and forcible with 
the words "pavilions" and "tents." This cumulative treat- 
ment of an idea, whether figurative or not, is almost always 
effective. 

Page 88, line 23.— Why "locust-leaf"? Is a locust leaf 
lighter than other leaves? If not, can you see a reason of another 
sort for using the word here? 

Page 89; line 18. — Is "bent of stature" a good phrase in 
your opinion? 

Page 90, line 10. — By the "all-sustaining Beauty" is 
meaait the Spirit of God, which merges all being intc; one. 



NOTES 101 

PRELUDE TO PART II 

Page 91, line 11, "Groined." — ^A groin, in architecture is the 
solid linear angle formed by the intersection of two bar- 
rel vaults. Look at the dictionary illustration if the image 
is obscure. 

Page 91, line 17, "Forest-crj-pt." — Crj^t is the pillared base- 
ment of a church; a forest-interior is here called a crypt because 
of the half-darkness and the pillar-like tree trunks. Is the figure, 
however, consistent? Do trunks of forest trees bend in 
a breeze? The word "steel-stemmed" increases the difficulty. 

Page 91, line 23, "Arabesques." — ^A species of ornamentation 
first used by the Arabs, representing fruits, flowers, leaves, and 
animals, curiously inter-twined. 

Page 92, line 17, "Corbel." — The support for the spring of 
an arch, in mediaeval arcliitecture always elaborately carved. 

Page 92, line 20, "Yule-log."— The great "back-log" of the 
fire-place, brought in at Christmas with much ceremony and merry- 
making. 

Page 92, lines 26-28 - In the last three lines, notice how 
the fanciful picture, first suggested by "scattering away," is made 
more vivid by the metaphor "soot-forests," and finally is completed 
bj'' the sic'iile of the startled deer. 

Page 93, lines 2-4. — Is not the use of Sir Launfal's hair 
as a "harp" for the wind to play a Christmas carol on, a 
bit grotesque? 

Page 93, line 9, "Seneschal." — An officer in great medi- 
aeval houses, whose business it was to superintend feasts and other 
domestic ceremonies. 

Page 93, lines 14-15, "Build out its piers," etc. — The poet 
seems to have two pictures in mind, corresponding to the double 
meaning of the word pier, either a support for the arch 
of a bridge, or an abutment built out to strengthen a wall. 
The light streaming from the window would take the form ol 



102 NO'lES 

an abutment, but in the pliraae "against the drift of the 
cold," the sweep of the river against a bridge-pier seems to 
be suggested. 



PART II 



Page 94, lines 7-10. — Is the kind of morning suggested in 
the four closing lines of this stanza consistent, to your mind, with 
sunshine, even "cold sun"? 

Page 94, line 16, "Surcoat." — A flowing garment worn by a 
warrior over his mail. The knight's arms or emblem were em- 
broidered upon it. 

Page 94, line 17, "The sign." — The sign of the cross. 

Page 95, line 2, "Idle." — Useless, vain. 

Page 95, line 7, "He sees the snake-like caravan craw'/' 
etc. — Can you discern the poet's pui-pose in introducing this 
picture here? Is "crawl" a better word than "move" o<' 
go"? Why? 

Page 95, lines 13-15. — Does the discrepancy in size be- 
tween the "little spring" and the "signal of palms" which 
it is said to wave, jar upon you? Remember that the 
palms are seen far off; otherwise they would not be spoken 
of as a signal. 

Page 95, line 23, "Desolate horror," because lepers were 
outcasts and not permitted to approach the dwellings of 
men. 

Page 96, line 8, "Behold, through him," etc. — The pronouns 
are a little confusing; "behold, through this leper, I give to thee, 
Christ." 

Page 96, line 12, "Leprosie." — The old spelling is used partly 
for the antique flavor, and partly because it affords a stronger 
rhyme syllable. 



NOTES 103 

Page 96, lines 21-22, "Yet with fine wheaten bread" etc. 
— Not to be taken literally, perhaps, though the poet has 
in mind the mi-'^icle of Cana, where the Lord turned water 
into wine. 

Page 97, line 6, "The pillar that stood by the Beautiful 
Gate," etc. — The allusion is to "the gate of the temple that is 
called Beautiful," where Peter healed the lame man; and also to 
Christ's saying, in the tenth chapter of John, "I am the door." 

Page 97, lines 11-13. — Is the simile of the snow falling on the 
sea consistently carried out; is there anything in Sir Launfal, 
"musing with downcast face," which suggests "shaggy unrest"? 
Has not the poet been carried away by his image beyond the point 
where the correspondence ceases? 

Page 97, Hne 22, "Holy Supper." — ^The Last Supper of 
Christ and his disciples, preserved in the communion service of 
the Church. 



APPENDIX 

(Adapted, and enlarged, from the Manual for the Study of English 
Classics, by George L. Marsh) 

ANCIENT MAEINER— HELPS TO STUDY 

Life of Coleridge 

Where was he born and when? ^Hiat was his father's occupation 
and character (p. 6) ? 

Where was Coleridge educated? What important person did he 
meet at this school? What was his reputation at school? 

What characteristic does the incident related on page 7 show, 
which was prominent later in Coleridge's poetry? 

Whose poetical influence came over him at an early age, and of 
what advantage was it (p. 8) ? 

What university did Coleridge attend, and who was his most 
important friend there? What historical event was of especial 
influence at the time (p. 8) ? 

In what great scheme were Coleridge and Southey associated 
(p. 9)? 

How did Coleridge attempt to make a living after leaving the 
university ? 

Under whose influence did Coleridge do most of his best poetical 
work (p. 12)? 

What foreign visit did he make, and what was its effect on his 
literary aspirations (p. 16) ? 

What dangerous habit ai^ected his achievement, and for how 
long (p. 17) ? Name a great contemporary of Coleridge who had 
the same trouble. 

What was Coleridge's occupation during the latter part of his 
life? 

When did he die? 

Tell something as to the importance in literary history of the 
volume in which The Ancient Mariner was first published (p. 14). 
In what two different ways was the ' ' return to nature ' ' illustrated 
in the contents of Lyrical Ballads (p. 15) ? 

104 



APPENDIX 105 



The Ancient Mariner 

Describe how this poem came to be written (pp. 13, 14). What 
was Wordsworth's share in it? Distinguish carefully between the 
work of Wordsworth aud that of Coleridge. Do you find the char- 
acteristics attributed to Wordsworth in the lines he is said to have 
suggested for The Ancient Mariner F 

What is the main lesson of the poem? Is it made too prominent 
at any point? 

What two kinds of torture does the Mariner have to endure? 
How is the spell over him broken? 

Point out ways in which the poem is given a supernatural atmos- 
phere (note p. 61). 

Who are the speakers in stanzas I, II and III? 

What are the antecedents of the pronouns in III and IV? 

Point out indications of directions and localities in VII, VIII, 
XXI, and anywhere else you find them in the poem. 

Point out striking examples of dramatic suggestions as to the 
appearance or action of the Mariner (XX, etc.). 

Are we told directly who are the occupants of the jDhantom ship 
(XLIV, etc.)? What method is used? Is it effective? Why? 

What is the purpose of the wedding guest's interruptions (LII, 
LXXIX)? The purpose of the Mariner's reference in CXXXV 
to the wedding? 

What is the metrical form of the poem? Describe the common- 
est variations from the normal line (p. 23) and give examples of 
each, chosen from your own reading. What variations of stanza 
do you find? Give examples. 

What is the effect of the rhymes in XII? 

Comment on metrical effects in stanzas XXXV, XL VIII, LVIII, 
LXXXVII. Select other stanzas in which you find striking met- 
rical effects. 

Point out several good examples of alliteration. 

What is the purpose and effect of the old words? Make a list of 
the obsolete words you find? What strikingly commonplace, almost 
vulgar words do you find? 

Point out some extremely simple figures, taken from common 



106 APPENDIX 

life. Are they effective? Comment on XLVII and the gloss, with 
special reference to the effect of the verbs and figures. Comment 
on the figures and sound effects in LXXXII-IV. 

Point out good examples of the use of specific words. 

From references to sounds and from the meter of this poem what 
should you say as to Coleridge's musical sense? 

What conclusion do you reach as to his imagination? 

THEME SUBJECTS 

1. The life of Coleridge (pp. 6-17). 

2. Character sketch of Coleridge (pp. 7-18). 

3. Coleridge and his famous friends (pp. 7-18). 

4. The genesis of The Ancient Mariner (pp. 13, 14). 

5. The story of The Ancient Mariner. (Tell in plain, simple 
language just what happens.) 

6. The geography of the poem. (Where does the ship go and 
how is its course indicated) ? 

7. The teaching of the poem (pp. 19, 20, 59). 

8. Character sketch of the Ancient Mariner. 

9. The character, and function in the poem, of the Wedding- 
Guest. 

10. Nature pictures in the poem (especially pp. 29, 30, 33, 34, 
38, 41, 44, 52, etc.). 

11. The meter and metrical effects (pp. 22-24, 30, 35, 46, etc.). 

12. Paraphrases of different striking portions of the poem (e. g., 
the following well marked scenes or tableaux : pp. 29-31, 32-34, 35- 
38, 39-42, 51-58, etc.). 

SELECTIONS FOE CLASS BEADING 

1. The storm (pp. 29, 30). 

2. The calm (pp. 33, 34). 

3. A sail appears (pp. 35, 36). 

4. The Spectre-Woman and her mate (p. 37). 

5. The Mariner's companions die (pp. 37, 38). 

6. The Mariner's solitude (pp. 39-41). 

7. The bodies of the crew are inspired (pp. 44, 45). 



APPENDIX 107 

8. Pleasant sounds (p. 46). 

9. The curse is expiated (pp. 50, 51). 
10. The Mariner's penance (pp. 58, 59). 

SIR LAUNFAL— HELPS TO STUDY 
Life of Lowell 

Where was Lowell educated, and for what profession did he 
study (p. 67) ? 

How did he make his start in literature? With what works, and 
when, did he first meet real success (p. 70) ? 

Where did he live during most of his life? What diplomatic po- 
sitions did he hold (p. 68) ? 

What is the nature of The Biglow Papers (p. 70) ? 

What important writing besides poetry did Lowell do? 

The Vision of Sir Launfal 

What was the Holy Grail? What was the cause of its disappear- 
ance? Who seached for it, and — according to the common story — 
by whom was it found (p. 71) ? 

What can you say as to the antiquity and literary importance of 
this legend? 

In what ways did Lowell enlarge the ' ' circle of competition ' ' ? 
And what additional conditions to success did he impose? 

Outline the changes wrought in Sir Launfal during his search 
for the Grail (pp. 72, 73) ? 

What, then, is the essential moral lesson of this poem? Why 
was Lowell particularly well suited to enforce the moral of tliis 
poem (pp. 73, 74)? 

What is the purpose and effect of the first stanza in relation to 
the rest of the poem? 

Where does the ''Vision" begin and where does it end? 

Note the editor's questions on page 79, Introduction. 

In what two ways does Sir Launfal see himself in his dreams 
(note, p. 100)? Point out instances of each. 

What is the poet 's purpose in introducing the caravan in Part 
II, stanza III? 



108 APPENDIX 

What is the most prominent poetical quality in this poem (pp. 
76, 77) ? Choose for yourself several of the most striking examples 
of it. 

Trace out in detail the figure begun by the word ' ' outpost, ' ' page 
88, line 1. 

Note how architectural terms run through the Prelude to Part II. 

Note questions on pages 101, 103, as to figures, and on page 99 
as to the metrical effect of the first stanza. Scan line 6, page 98. 

Point out some good examples of alliteration. 

How does this poem compare with The Ancient Mariner in imagi- 
nation? In metrical effects? In musical effect? 

THEME SUBJECTS 

1. Lowell's life (pp. 67-70). 

2. The story of the Holy Grail (pp. 71-73). 

3. Tennyson's treatment of the Grail story. (See particularly 
''The Holy Grail.") 

4. Lowell's variations from the ordinary versions of the Grail 
story (pp. 71-73). 

5. The development of Sir Launfal's character during his 
search for the Grail. 

6. The moral lesson of this poem (pp. 73-75). 

7. Nature pictures in the poem ; e. g. : 
''A day in June" (pp. 84-86). 

A winter scene (pp. 91-93). 

8. Paraphrases of the picture just mentioned may be asked. 

9. The story of Sir Launfal. 

10. The relations of the preludes to the main parts of the poem 
(p. 79). 

SELECTIONS FOR CLASS READING 

1. "A day in June" (pp. 84-86). 

2. Sir Launfal and the leper (pp. 89-90). 

3. A winter scene (pp. 91-93). 

4. Sir Launfal's return (pp. 94-95). 

5. The transforjnation of the leper (pp. 97-98). 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

In tiie following, parallel columns are given the most impor- 
tant dates in tlie history of English and American Literature 
from the publication of the Ancient Mariner to about the middle 
of the following century. 



AMERICAN 

179S Brown: Wieland. 

J. Hopkinson : if on * 
ColuniMa. 

1S03 The Louisiana Purchase. 



1S09 Irving : Knickerh acker's 
History of New York. 



1812-14 War with England. 



1514 Key : The Star-Spangled 

Banner. 

1515 Freneau : Poems. 



1S17 Bryant : Thanatopsis. 



1819 Drake : The American 

Flag. 

1820 Irving: The Sketch Book. 
The Missouri Compromise. 

1821 Cooper : The Spy. 
Bryant : Poems. 

1822 Irving : Braceliridge Hall. 

1823 Payne : Home, Sweet 

Home. 
Cooper : The Pilot. 



1798 



1805 

1808 
1809 

1810 

1811 

1812 

1813 
1814 



1815 
1816 



1817 
1818 
1819 
1820 

1821 
1823 



ENGLISH 

Wordsworth and Cole- 
ridge : Lyrical Ballads 
("The Ancient Mari- 
ner," etc.). 

Scott : Lay of the Last 
Minstrel. 

Scott : Marmion. 

Byron : English Bards 
and Scotch Reviewers. 

Scott : The Lady of the 
Lake. 

J. Austen : Sense and 
Se^isihility. 

Byron : Childe Harold, 
I, II. 

Southey : Life of Nelson. 

Scott : Waverley. 

Wordsworth: The Excur- 
sion. 

The Battle of Waterloo. 

Byron : The Prisoner of 
Chillon; Childe Harold, 
III. 

Coleridge : Christahcl. 

Keats : Poems (first col- 
lection). 

Byron : Childe Harold, 
IV. 

Scott : Ivanhoe. 

Keats : Poems. 

Shelley : Prometheus Un- 
bound. 

Shelley : Adonais. 

De Quincey : Confessions 
of an Opium Eater. 

Scott : Quentin Durward. 
Lamb : Essays of Elia. 



109 



110 



APPENDIX 



AMERICAN 

1524 Irving: Tnhs of a Trav- 

eler. 

1525 Webster: The Bunker 

Hill Monument. 

1826 Cooper : The Last of the 

Mohicants. 

1827 r o e : Tamerlane and 

Other Poems. 



1831 Poe : Poems. 

1832 Irving : The Alhamtra. 
S. F. Smith : America. 

1833 roe : If/S'. Found in a 

Bottle. 

1835 Drake: The Culprit Fay, 

etc. 

1836 Holmes : Poems. 
Emerson : Nature. 

1837 Emerson : The American 

tscholar. 
Hawthorne : Twice-Told 

Tales, first series. 
Whittier : Poems. 

1839 Poe : Tales of the Grotes- 

que and Arabesque. 
Longfellow : Voices of the 
Night. 

1840 Dana : Ttvo Years Before 

the Mast. 

1841 Emerson : Essays, first 

series. 
Longfellow : Ballads and 
Other Poems. 

1842 Hawthorne : Twice-Told 

2' ales, second series. 



1843 Poe: The Gold-Bug. 

Prescott : Conquest of 
Mexico. 



1844 Emerson : Essays, second 
series. 
Lowell : Forms. 



ENGLISH 

1524 Landor : Imaginary Con- 

vcraations. 

1525 Macaulaj' : Essay on Mil- 

ton. 



1827 A. and C. Tennyson : 

Poctn^^ by Two Broth- 
ers. 

1828 Carljdc : Essay on Burns. 

1830 Tennyson : Poems Chiefly 
Lyrical. 

1832 Death of Scott; The Re- 

form Bill. 

1833 Carlyle : Sartor Resartus. 
Tennyson.: Poems. 
Browning : Pauline. 

1S35 Browning : Paracelsus. 

1836 Dickens : Pickwick Pa- 

pers. 

1837 Victoria became Queen. 
De Quincey : Revolt of 

the Tartars. 
Carlyle: The French 
Revolution. 



1S4C Macaulay : Essay on 
Clive. 

18-11 Browning : Pippa Passes. 
Macaulay : EfiRay on War- 
ren Hastings. 

1842 Macaulay : Lays of An- 

cient Rome. 
Browning : Dramatic 
Lyrics. 

1843 Dickens : A Christmas 

Carol. 

Macaulay : Essay on Ad- 
dison. 

Ruskin : Modern Painters, 
Vol. I. 

1844 E. B. Browning: Poems. 



APPENDIX 



111 



AMBRICAN 

1845 Poe : The Raven and 

Other Poems. 

1846 Hawthorne: Mosses from 

an Old Manse. 
1846-48 War with Mexico. 

1847 Emerson : Poems. 
Longfellow : Evangeline. 
Parkman : The Oregon 

Trail. 

1848 Lowell : Vision of Sir 

Launfal. 

1849 Irving : Oliver Goldsmith. 



1850 Emerson : Representative 

Men. 
Hawthorne : The Scarlet 
Letter. 

1851 Hawthorne : The House 

of the Seven Gahles. 
Parkman : The Conspir- 
acy of Pontiac. 

1852 Mrs. Stowe : Uncle Tom's 

Cabin. 



1854 Thoreau : Walden. 

1855 Longfellow : Hiauatha. 
Whitman : Leaves of 

Grass. 



ENGLISH 

1845 Browning: Dramatic Ro- 

mances and Lyrics. 

1846 Dickens : The Cricket on 

the Hearth. 

1847 De Quincey : Joan of Arc. 
Tennyson : The Princess. 
Thack.eray : Vanity Fair 
C. Bronte : Jane Eyre. 

1848 Macaulay : History of 

England, I, II. 

1849 De Quincey : The English 

Mail Coach. 
M. Arnold : The Strayed 
Reveller, etc. 

1850 Tennyson : fn Memoriam. 
Dickens : David Copper 

field. 

1851 Thackeray : Lectures on 

English Humorists. 
G. Meredith : Poems. 

1852 Thackeray : Henry Es- 

mond. 

1853 M. Arnold: Poems 

("Sohrab and Rustum,"' 
etc.). 
Mrs. Gaskell : Cranford. 



1S55 R. Browning : Men and 
Women. 
Tennyson : Maud. 



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